


Heart on Your Sleeve

by Streetlamp_Sunset



Series: First Words Soulmate AU [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Domestic Fluff, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Streetlamp_Sunset/pseuds/Streetlamp_Sunset
Summary: Patrick thinks a lot about Stevie, decides she’s his platonic soulmate, and gets a tattoo.Patrick wished he had a better memory, that he remembered exactly what she had said when they first met. More, he wished that her words had been scrawled across his arm in the first place. He settled for the next best thing, because the first words he remembered her saying came with a rush of fondness so deep he thought maybe the universe got it wrong sometimes. Stevie was his soulmate too, he decided. Patrick ran his fingers over the post-it she had stuck on his lunch that morning and picked up his phone.“Hi,” Patrick said after someone picked up on the other end, “do you accept walk-ins?”
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Stevie Budd & David Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd & Patrick Brewer
Series: First Words Soulmate AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812622
Comments: 34
Kudos: 118





	1. I Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, the first thing Stevie said to Patrick was, “Exactly,” but that’s not as cute.

The first time the choreographer asked Stevie to cartwheel into his arms she did, without hesitation. They fell in a heap on the floor, laughing as they untangled their limbs. Even so, Patrick caught her. He wanted that always, he realized as she pulled him to his feet, to catch her, for her to trust that he would. 

Patrick wished he had a better memory, that he remembered exactly what she had said when they first met. More, he wished that her words had been scrawled across his arm in the first place. He settled for the next best thing, because the first words he remembered her saying came with a rush of fondness so deep he thought maybe the universe got it wrong sometimes. Stevie was his soulmate too, he decided. Patrick ran his fingers over the post-it she had stuck on his lunch that morning and picked up his phone. 

“Hi,” Patrick said after someone picked up on the other end, “do you accept walk-ins?”

* * *

The first mornings after Patrick moved in were quiet. While David slept, he and Stevie learned to inhabit them together. Patrick would get back from a hike to find her stumbling out of her room to brew the first pot of coffee. After three consecutive days of watching her fall asleep leaning against the counter, he started the coffee maker on his way out the door. 

“Good hike?” she asked, stifling a yawn behind the sleeve of David’s sweater. Patrick nodded, pressing a kiss to the side of her head the way he had seen David do a thousand times. He was halfway through rinsing out his water bottle before the thought caught up to him. He turned to apologize, but found her smiling sleepily into her mug. 

They moved around each other with a practiced ease in the apartment’s single bathroom. Stevie passed him his towel, he handed her the red toothbrush from the cup. 

“You’re using the wrong shampoo,” she said, seemingly out of the blue one morning. They stood side by side in the mirror while they got ready.

“What?” Patrick asked, but he still had his toothbrush half in his mouth, so it came out as a garbled mess of consonants. Stevie snorted, a smile sneaking onto her face before she smoothed it away.

“David keeps complaining about how you’re using the wrong shampoo for your hair,” she said, gesturing towards his head. He had been trying to grow it out some, but it hadn’t been curling the way it did when he was a kid. “Apparently, the sulfates in it are ruining your curl definition,” she said, leaning forward over the counter to squint at a blackhead on her chin.

“Oh,” Patrick said. That actually made a lot of sense. He rinsed his toothbrush, setting it back in the cup, “why wouldn’t he just tell me himself?” 

“Because he’s an idiot,” she said, shrugging. Patrick raised an eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t want you to feel like he’s trying to change who you are,” Stevie elaborated, sliding her arms into her flannel. Patrick was touched, that was almost nice. “But he’s also letting you walk around looking like that, so I felt compelled to say something,” she said, smirking at him in the mirror before wandering out of the bathroom. There it was.

Patrick joined her in the kitchen, starting on their breakfast while she packed lunches. When Patrick moved in, he brought his budget with him. That had led to meal planning and prepping, which cut down their cafe expenses enough that David and Stevie could afford to drink the good wine. 

“Pancakes sound okay?” Patrick asked, already pulling the blueberries from the fridge. He was feeling sentimental and blueberry pancakes were her favorite.

“Obviously,” she said, grabbing a mug from the cabinet. “You don’t need to ask, just make them.”

“Thank you for making pancakes, Patrick,” he said, a teasing lilt to his voice. He spooned flour into the measuring cup. “It means so much to me that you’re making my favorite breakfast from scratch.” Stevie rolled her eyes, but handed him a mug of tea, exactly the way he took it.

* * *

Patrick washed his fresh tattoo off in the bathroom for the first time, soapy fingers ghosting over the raised letters. He had copied most of them off of David’s mark. He marveled at the identical ‘I’ and ‘you’ and the ‘e’ he had painstakingly traced. The rest, he had gotten from a post-it note where she had written ‘Patrick’s lunch (not David’s!)’. 

“ _ I like you,”  _ Stevie had said, years ago, the first time they met. Patrick’s gaze drifted between his arm and the long, black ring box he had gotten David, tears welling in his eyes. He liked them too, so much. 


	2. Did you ask if you could drink it, too?

Patrick wrote it seven times before he felt like it was good enough. _ Did you ask if you could drink it, too?  _ He folded the paper into a neat square and laid it over the appointment card in the ring box. Patrick would understand if she didn’t want this, but he needed to give her the option. Stevie wouldn’t ask for it. He knew she still half expected him and David to leave her behind. This was the best he could do to show her that that was never going to happen. 

* * *

“Not now, David,” Stevie called through the bathroom door. She had been pulled aside at practice to do movement exercises with the rest of the Kit Kat girls. He was taking a break from scene work with Jocelyn when he checked his phone to find a series of emergency emojis from Alexis. 

“It’s me,” Patrick said, stepping in and closing the door behind him. Stevie was sitting in the bath, her head and knees visible above the cover of bubbles. “Can I join you?” Stevie nodded. Patrick grabbed a clean towel from the cabinet and sat against the wall next to the tub. “So I take it, practice went well then,” Patrick said. Stevie snorted.

“Yeah, Mrs Rose kept telling me to drown it all out, so I figured I’d come back here and do that,” she said, swishing her fingers through the bubbles. 

“Naturally,” Patrick said, shuddering as he thought about how overbearing their soulmate’s mother could be, “that seems like a sound course of action.” He gestured to the water, “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re not,” she said. Stevie lay her cheek on her knee, turning to look at him properly, “I just don’t think it would be fair to leave you all alone with David.” 

“Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want that,” Patrick said, a levity in his voice even as he willed her to believe him. “Plus, we both know how poorly David handles dead bodies.” Stevie hummed in agreement.

“Death in general, really,” she said, popping bubbles between wrinkled fingers. She had been in here far too long. By the time Patrick gathered their things and made his way home it had been nearly an hour since Alexis’ first text.

“Come watch a movie with me?” Patrick asked. Stevie hesitated, David had a tendency to inadvertently exacerbate her anxiety, especially when it came to the Roses. “David’s spending time with Alexis,” Patrick added, “she said she’d give me a heads up when he’s on his way home.” 

“Silence of the Lambs?” Stevie asked, because David thought horror movies were incorrect.

“Sounds good,” Patrick said, standing and making his way to the kitchen. He pulled the tall pot from the cupboard, heated oil in the bottom, and added a layer of kernels. He automatically reached for the salt before remembering that David wasn’t home. He grabbed the honey for Stevie and had a bowl of popcorn made up and waiting on the coffee table by the time she was dressed. 

“Well, this is cozy,” She said, flopping down on the couch next to him. He had switched on their dim lamps and pulled the fluffy blanket off the end of their bed. It usually disappeared into Stevie’s room when she’d had a hard day, so he figured he’d expedite the process. “You did’t have to make me popcorn, Patrick,” she said, cradling it in her lap. He did, actually.

Instead he said, “I didn’t, half of it is for me.” Patrick started the movie, but he found himself watching Stevie instead. The tension in her shoulders had mostly scaled back to its normal range, but her hair was still wet, dripping on his old college sweatshirt. If David were here he would just grab the brush from the side table and tell her to turn so he could gather it into a braid. 

“What?” she asked, eyes still half on the screen.

“David usually does your hair,” Patrick said, Stevie turned to look at him curiously.

“And?” she said, setting the mostly empty bowl off to the side.

“Can I braid it for you?” he asked.

“Oh,” Stevie said, tugging the sleeves of the sweatshirt over her hands. “Um, sure. Do you want me to move or?” He found the brush and a hair tie in the drawer, moving to sit behind her on the couch. 

“No, you’re fine exactly where you are,” Patrick said.

* * *

“How have you not passed out from heat exhaustion?” Stevie asked. She was perched on the edge of Moira’s desk, taking a water break. Patrick had left his sweatshirt on while they practiced, fresh tattoo clearly visible without it. 

“Oh, I still might,” Patrick said, moving around the desk to grab the ring box out of Moira’s desk drawer. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. He tucked it in his pocket and sat next to her.

“I was going to wait until after practice, but I feel like we might have an actual medical emergency if I don’t do this now,” he said. Stevie rolled her eyes, stealing a drink out of his water bottle. “I wanted to ask for your blessing to propose to David.” Patrick watched her face fall, mouth twisting into a sad smile.

“Of course you have my blessing, Patrick” she said, because she had never denied him any part of loving David.

“Thank you, Stevie,” Patrick said. He slid his sweatshirt off, handing her the box, “This is for you.”

“That’s my handwriting,” Stevie said, grabbing his arm. She let out a shaky laugh, “Patrick, what is this?”

“You’re my soulmate, Stevie,” he said as she unfolded his note. “and I would be honored to be yours.” She turned to bury her face in his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, pressing his face to her hair. 

“These are stupid fucking words, Patrick,” Stevie said. Thirteen days later, he held her hand while they were printed on her skin. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I welcome any and all feedback.  
> ❤️ Sunset


End file.
